July 12

“Humanity held captive by its own rebellion at being set free!...We are not asking God to let us out of prison just so we can praise His name.  We are merely facing the fact that until we have been willing to come out, we cannot praise Him...You feel you are a victim.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 7/12

In thinking about why we rebel at being set free, I think it must be, as Eugenia points out, that we feel we are victims.  The whole point of being a “victim” is to insist on your utter helplessness--not the kind of helpless that God calls us to so that He can give us what we need, but the kind that seems to gloat in it because of all the attention it garners.  Yes, we are only victims so that we can get attention.  I’ve watched formerly unknown people be interviewed on national television because the news media thought their victim story was news worthy and vowed I’d never consent to an interview if I were in their situation.  It would serve no good purpose.  It would either cause people to feel sorry for me or reinforce my own temptation to feel sorry for myself.   I’m sure many people receive letters or money from the strangers that hear their story, but this only serves to identify them as victims even more so.  How much better for us if we would accept God’s keys to the prison we place ourselves in when we refuse His comfort and supply.  The only way we can do this is to give Him the praise in all things and thereby refuse the victim status.

“But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s fetters were unfastened.”  Acts 16:25, 26